The hidden fear of Tony Stark
by kittytail88
Summary: Tony has a fear of water from his time in Afghan and a crush on Clint. Warning: there will be self-harm in latter chapter.
1. Chapter 1

Tony knew that water was one of his triggers. He's gotten used to it, but not to the point that he could go completely under. That's why Tony decided to stand in the three foot deep water instead of "training" with Steve, Clint, and Natasha. He wasn't sitting in one of the chairs with Bruce because he decided that he might as well be in the pool.

The question that kept running through Tony's head was 'How in the hell did I get in this situation?'

During the first tour he made sure to overlook the pool that somehow got in the plans without him knowing. Apparently, after the incident, Clint had decided to wonder around the tower and he had miraculously come across the pool. What great luck Tony had.

He came out of his musing when he noticed that Clint was swimming over to him.

"Why don't you come join us? Or are you too afraid old man?" Clint asked with a smirk.

"First of all, I'm not that much older than you and second, I'm fine relaxing over here. No splashing and such. Also, I'm going to get out here soon. Fine tune some stuff in the lab," Tony replied.

"Oh, come on old man. At least get your head a bit wet."

"I'm good, Barton." when Tony finished replying he noticed that Clint had disappeared.

The next thing he knew was that Clint was holding him in a headlock. He knew what happened next, but Clint wouldn't, would he?"

"Clint don't," Tony said as he was being brought closer to the water. "Clint, stop. I'm serious, sto-"Tony was cut off there as her was plunged into the water.

Suddenly he wasn't in the pool in Avengers Tower anymore. He was back in that cave in Afghanistan being plunged into the water so that they could get as many secrets as they could.

He started to thrash around to try to get the enemy off of him. When he came up he said as loudly as he could, "You're not getting any information out of me! I won't tell you anything, so you'll anything, so you'll have to kill me!"


	2. Chapter 2

After holding Tony under for a second or so, Clint realized something wasn't right. He quickly pulled Tony back up and turned him around he cupped Tony's head in his hands and looked into his face. He noticed that Tony's eyes were glazed over.

"Tony," Clint called softly.

Then Tony yelled as loud as he could through his ragged breathing, "You're not getting any information out of me! I won't tell you anything, so you'll have to kill me!"

Finally realizing what was wrong, Clint took Tony's shoulders and asked, "Tony, where are you right now?"

Tony's eyes started to dart around the room and then he realized that he was fine and not back in that cave. Then he realized that Clint was holding onto him. He blushed with embarrassment, one because the whole team saw his panic attack and, two, because his crush was holding him.

To hide his embarrassment, Tony shoved Clint away and yelled, "Get off of me, Barton!"

Tony got out of the pool, slowly climbing up the stairs. When he turned around he noticed that everyone was looking at him worriedly. Natasha and Steve had stopped 'training'. Bruce was standing next to the chair that he had been occupying. But the closest was Clint, who had a very worried expression on his face.

Tony backed away until he felt the door knob press into his back. All he could think was, ' _Oh God. They saw, HE saw. He's going to hate me. Oh God, no!'_

Then he heard Clint ask, "Tony, are you ok?"

Tony grabbed the handle of the door and ran out of the room. The last thing he heard before he made it to the elevator was the yells of his team, but the one that was the loudest was Clint's, "TONY!"

As he passed his locker in the changing room he had grabbed his jacket which held an old time acquaintance to Tony and as he waited for the elevator to reach his floor he had his hand in his pocket running his fingers over the cold, silver metal.

As soon as the elevator doors opened to his private floor Tony an out and said, "Jarvis, this floor is off limits till I say so. No one is allowed up here."

Jarvis responded, "Of course, sir."

After saying that Tony ran into his bathroom, locked the door, placed the blade on the counter, and leaned against the sink. He looked at the blade and then up to the mirror. Since he had fallen in love with Clint about a year ago he had decided to stop cutting. He did everything within his power, so instead of cutting he took out the bottle of scotch that he kept in his bathroom for emergencies.

As he unscrewed the lid he realized that his hands were shaking badly, but he realized too late as he watched the bottle shatter on the tiled floor. He hadn't realized that he had stepped onto the shards until pain shot up through his legs.

He looked down at the blade again, feeling it calling him. He slowly picked it up and walked over to the corner and sat down. Tears streamed down his face as he brought the blade down onto his wrist. He slowly made a shallow cut across his wrist. He made several more shallow cuts on his wrist and one long, deep cut from his left wrist all the way up to just below his elbow.

Realizing what he had just done Tony threw the blade across the bathroom and it landed right in front of the door. He then grabbed a towel and applied as much pressure as he could onto his arms while thinking, ' _I had gone a whole year without doing that! God dammit! He'll defiantly hate me.'_

As he finished that thought and looked down he realized that the blood wasn't stopping. In fact, it was starting to show up on the other side of the fairly thick towel. He pulled off the once white towel carefully and grabbed another one off the rack beside him, but the bleeding wouldn't stop.

Tony started muttering which eventually turning into yells of panic, "No, no, no. Stop! Why won't it STOP!"

As he frantically tried to stop the bleeding Tony barely noticed the door slam open.


	3. Chapter 3

Clint had gotten out of the pool and tried to catch up to Tony, but by the time he had made it to the elevator the doors were closed. He ran to the stairwell and started to climb as fast as he could. When he reached Tony's private floor he found the door locked.

"Jarvis, can you please open the door," he said with annoyance.

"I'm sorry, Master Barton, but Master Tony said that there should be no one permitted on this floor, though I am a bit worried."

"Please, Jarvis. I'll owe you big time," Clint pleaded.

"Well, I would hope so, Master Barton."

After hearing that, Clint heard a clicking sound coming from the door. He quickly walked through the door and onto the floor. As he neared Tony's bedroom he heard Tony yell, "Stop! Why won't it STOP!"

At hearing that Clint ran into his bedroom. When he didn't see Tony anywhere he slammed open the bathroom door to a horrid sight.

Right in front of the door was a bloody blade, in front of the sink was a broken bottle with blood footprints leading to a frantic looking Tony Stark trying to stop the bleeding coming from his arm and beside him laid an already soaked towel.

Clint rushed over to Tony, grabbed another white towel off the shelf, and knelt down next to him. Clint, then, slowly remove the blood covered towel from Tony's arm to see how deep the cut was.

When he saw the cut he immediately said, "Jarvis, get me a disinfected needle and thread. I'm going to have to stitch Tony up."

"Of course, sir."

After Jarvis had given him the things that he had asked for, Clint heard Tony muttering under his breath. As he began working on stitching Tony's arm, Clint leaned in slightly to try and understand what Tony was saying while at the same time realizing that Tony had no idea that Clint was there.

As he stitched Tony up Clint heard him say, "Oh God. It had been a whole year! God dammit! I promised myself that I'd never do it again! Now he's going to hate me. Howard was right, I'm a failure. I can't even confess my feelings for him, and then I go and have a panic attack in front of the team. God dammit!"

As Clint moved down to Tony's feet to remove the glass and patch them up he realized that the bathroom had gotten eerily quiet. He looked up and saw Tony had his hands covering his face and he was taking short, shallow breathes. He was crying.

As soon as Clint was done removing all the glass shards from Tony's feet he moved back up to kneel in front of Tony's face again. He took Tony's hand and pulled them away from his face. What he saw underneath was not what he was expecting. Tony looked so broken with the stream of tears going down his face. It also seemed as if he had been expecting it, like people had kept beating him down, which made sense to Clint since Tony hated Howard, but never knew why until now. Howard had put his own son down.

' _I wish that I could bring Howard back to life so I could kill him,'_ Clint thought.

All of a sudden Tony snapped back to the land of the living and when he focused on Clint he started to panic. His breathing got shallow as looked down at his stitched arm and realization hit him.

"Oh God. Your saw didn't you? You hate me now. Oh God, I'm so weak!" Tony said as he began to panic more and more.

Clint pulled the other man into his arms and said softly, "I don't hate you and you're not weak. You've just been through a lot of shit, like all of us."

Tony looked up with hope in his eyes and whispers, "You don't hate me? Why? I'm disgusting. I'm weak. I'm in love with you. How could you not hate me?"

Clint was shocked, ecstatic but shocked. Tony had just confessed to him. So, instead of sitting there looking like an idiot he leaned in and kissed Tony, and when he leaned back he whispered, "I don't hate you because I love You."

 **The End**

 **He guys, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed this story.**

 **If you want go into the reviews and put the number of times I wrote a form of realize and notice. There's quite a few.**


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